In the service of the presidency - African Americans on the White House domestic staff; Special Issue: The Untold Story of Blacks in the White House

Coming abode late one night by taxi, Armstead Barnett told the Washington, DC cabbie to take him dwelling to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Suspecting that his passenger was up to more [i]or[/i] less sort of prank, the driver asked suspiciously, "The White House at this time of night?"

On another occasion, Barnett created a bigger stir when he was asked to list his place of abode address on a marriage license. I" told them I lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," he recalled a certain quantity of years later. The license bureau scribes looked at each other in disbelief. After he left the office, someone must have called the pres because when Barnett got back to the White House, he was told that it was upon the news that "Armstead Barnett was giving Franklin Delano Roosevelt's address--1600 Pennsylvania Avenue"--as his possess The commotion reached such proportions that Mr Roosevelt was obliged to clinch a press briefing to advise the media, "That's the sole address he's got; he had to give that address!"

Armstead Barnett was an African American who worked as a butler in the Roosevelt Truman and Eisenhower White House, where he lived from 1938 to 1941 single could easily conclude from Barnett's experiences that a black vicinity at the White House was rare. notwithstanding in administrations dating back to the presidency of Thomas jefferson African Americans probably exhibited the majority of the domestic staff.

Researching the lives of these workers is complicated through their silence. Once one come intos the inner sanctum of the White House, no matter what your status, discretion is wait fored Secrets are known, but not at any time told--a code that has been in place for sum of two units centuries.

There is also today a certain uneasiness about discussing the history of African Americans as domestic workers, as if their labors were intrinsically demeaning. Consequently the names of Barnett and those who worked alongside him many times go unmentioned in official written accounts. on the other hand it is impossible to take an account of a complete history of the White House without referring to the nation who made it function upon a day-to-day basis, who helped to create and pass along from individual administration to another many of the rituals and types that we understand to be White House culture

Most Americans are familiar with the public signs of White House culture: the televised image of the president speaking to the nation from the Oval Office; the view of the southern portico; the Marine Band striking up "Hail to the chief"; the presidential seal upon a podium; a crowd gathered in the Rose Garden and the first family arriving by dint of helicopter on the lawn. The presentation and display of White House tillage stirs public interest and makes nation take notice.

Less public, on the other hand just as important to White House tillage are the rituals surrounding the announcing of visitors the state dinners, the tea parties, the presentation of diplomatic credentials, or the education of each of recent origin president and his family in the traditions of the White House. It is in this les public world that African-American domestic workers have made their greatest in quantity significant contributions.

Our first president, George Washington, was keenly aware of the importance not single of being president, but of performing as president. "Many things which appear of little importance," he wrote may have great and durable ends from their having been established at the beginning of a new general government" Washington thinking that it was important that the "President in all matters and etiquette can have no particular but to maintain the dignity of the office, without subjecting himself to the imputation of superciliousness or unnecessary reserve" Washington was convinced of the value and necessity of a ceremonious presidency, and he sought to achieve his goal by dint of staffing his official residences in novel York and later Philadelphia with a certain number of 20 slaves from his private estate at mountain Vernon.

After the White House became the official residence of the president in 1801 African-American workers were in the majority for the first 50 years, in part because prior to 1840 there was no regulation appropriation of funds for any staff. Presidents were responsible for their hold expenses, most of their entertaining, and a great deal of of the considerable cost of maintaining and operating the White House. Their staff comprised family members, hired servants and, if they had them, slaves who lived and worked in the White House.

The 1840 saw the beginnings of a professional White House staff, with congressional appropriations for a doorman, sum of two units gardeners and a guard. However, slaves, servants and family members continued to carry the major responsibilities of making the President's House work.

After the Civil War, a fathomless change began to occur in the White House domestic staff that would enhance the African-American character in the creation and maintenance of White House tillage The everyday domestic affairs of the White House began to be carried without by a permanent, professional White House staff. Les not seldom did the president bring his be in possession of people to manage the White House. Instead, the domestic employee (maids, prepare for the tables butlers and doormen) continued upon as a rule from individual administration to another. A convention emerg in which presidents brought a scarcely any personal servants who worked alongside the permanent professional staff. The solitary exception to this trend was the next to the first Cleveland administration, when practically all employee in the White House were replaced.